No one would have believed, in the last years of the nineteenth century, that human affairs were being watched
from the timeless worlds of space. No one could have dreamed that we were being scrutinized as someone with a microscope studies
creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. Few men even considered the possibility of life on other planets. And
yet, across the gulf of space, minds immeasurably superior to ours regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely,
they drew their plans against us.

The Introductory Paragraph From The Book

No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly
and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various
concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient
creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about
their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope
do the same. No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss
the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed
days. At most, terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome
a missionary enterprise. Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that
perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their
plans against us.